Thursday, October 28, 2010

Around the Word

Today, the BloGG is all business:

The economic earthquake still rages, according to 2010's Business Book of the Year, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy by Raghuram Rajan. A professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a former IMF official, Rajan rose to economic stardom playing "Crisis Cassandra" in the Greek Tragedy of global finance—he predicted the current economic crisis way back in 2005. Other finalists for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book award for "the most compelling and enjoyable insight into modern business issues" included The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick and Too Big to Failby Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Followers of Mad Men exec Roger Sterling's Twitter feed can get even closer to the appealing (and appalling) hedonist with his upcoming "memoir." With chapters on "Clients," "Women," and "Drinking," Sterling's Gold joins an illustrious line of fiction-inspired "non-fiction" (see also: Harry Potter's wizarding textbooks). We wonder—what must it feel like to ghostwrite the fictional memoir of someone who doesn't exist?

The gallant guardian of grammar John McIntyre presides over a puzzling question today in The Baltimore Sun:

"Mary Smith is one of the librarians who oppose(s)? the contract."

McIntyre explains that the "s" makes all the difference. If "oppose" is kept singular, then Mary is singled out among librarians as an opponent of the contract (which her compeers may support or oppose). However, removing the "s" integrates Mary into the pool of librarians, who are now united in agreement. The "s" is the railroad switch in the sentence—small but instrumental.